Sunday, July 6, 2014

One Nil

(I wrote this post during the previous (2010) World Cup
in South Africa.
In the finals, Spain beat Netherlands One
Nil. Four years ago, soccer was not that popular in USA.
Broadcasters were never heard of the word "NIL". So they took a
special liking in pronouncing that word. I have almost a new set of
readers now to my blog (I took a 2 year sabbatical). It is for their
benefit. Hope you like this post.)

Published on July 7, 2010.

Today
will be an enthusiastic day for American sports announcers in television and
radio stations. Here is the reason.

The
meaning for the word “nil” is zero or nothing. In sports, it is used in soccer
very commonly. However, in USA,
when there is no score the term “nothing” is used. Never have they used the
word “nil”. Also, soccer is not that popular in USA yet.

But
there is lot of enthusiasm here during the soccer world cup. It is given very
high priority in news. World cup matches are televised live.

Sports
announcers get a kick out of saying the word “nil”. Actually, they love saying
it. They enjoy saying it. If the score is something like 2 to 1, they don’t
show that much enthusiasm. There is some enthusiasm when the score is “2 nil”
or “3 nil” or “nil nil”. But their biggest pleasure is when they announce the
score “one nil”. Their pronunciation is more pronounced. A few minutes ago, Spain beat Germany one nil. They will be very
happily saying throughout the day: